The present invention relates to mobile and landline telecommunications services, and more particularly to selectively integrating call screen list based telephony services for subscriber having both mobile wireless and landline telephone terminals.
Originally, telecommunications was supported through traditional landline based telephony technology. To insure consistency between numerous landline telephony systems, well defined standards, protocols, and topologies were developed over time. More recently, wireless telephony as developed as an alternative means of telecommunications. However, wireless telephony evolved with its own separate and distinct standards, protocols, and topologies optimized for the mobile telephony environment. In addition, landline and mobile telecommunications each developed their own separate and distinct networks and switching infrastructures.
Interfaces have been developed between the landline and mobile telephony networks, allowing subscribers of the respective networks to communicate. Initially, special purpose equipment served to interconnect these independent networks. Recently. telecommunications switches Were developed that could interoperatc in both landline and mobile networks. However,duplicate telephony switches and networks are still pervasive. As a result, subscribers of both landline and mobile telephony services are often serviced by different telephony switches and networks depending on whether subscribers are receiving landline or mobile wireless telephony services.
Subscribers must therefore interface separately with landline and mobile telephony networks to activate and configure the respective telephony services provided by each network. Separate activation and configuration of landline and wireless telephony services occurs even with modern integrated landline and wireless telephony switches. While user interfaces are provided to subscribers of the respective networks for configuring telephony services, telephony services provided to subscribers of both landline and mobile telecommunications networks are not delivered in an integrated manner. No coordination exists between the landline and mobile wireless facilities that provide common telephony services. As a result, subscribers to both landline and mobile telephony services can encounter problems obtaining the desired telephony services, particularly with respect to incoming call screening, incoming call acceptance, incoming call rejection, incoming call forwarding, and related telephony services.
In this regard, incoming call screening and incoming call acceptance services are generally defined by a call screen list associated with a particular telephone number. Presently, separate call screen lists are required to define these services for mobile and landline telephony subscribers respectively. Telephony service subscribers must activate, configure, and deactivate these lists individually in each network. For instance, to customize call screen list call blocking services, a customer would first configure an incoming call screen list managed for their mobile telephone by the mobile network through a first user interface provided by that network. Subsequently, if that customer also desired to customize call screening services for their wired home telephone, they would also have to configure an incoming call screen list managed by the landline network for their landline telephone through a different user interface provided by that network.
As a result, subscribers may be inconvenienced by the redundant management and configuration of telephony services for their mobile and landline telephones. Because the interfaces for managing mobile and landline are separate and different, a subscriber may be unable or unwilling to configure call screen list based services as desired. Confusion may result, since a subscriber may lose track of the services to be provided for each respective telephone.
In addition, subscribers could lose calls and messages because their call screening services are not coordinated. For example, a family member whose calls are always accepted by a landline telephone may be unintentionally screened from calling a mobile telephone, if the subscriber forgot to configure the call screen list for their mobile telephone to identify calls from the family member as telephone calls that should always be accepted. Alternatively, subscribers may be contacted by callers to whom they did not wish to speak. For instance, a harassing caller blocked from calling a mobile telephone may be accidentally omitted from the call blocking screen list of a landline telephone. Even if both call screen lists were configured as desired by the subscriber, it is not possible to automatically integrate and coordinate the delivery of services between the mobile and landline telephony systems. For example, it is not practical for a subscriber to configure call blocking or acceptance services to be delivered automatically according to the combination of their mobile and landline call screen lists.
While various call screening and call acceptance services are available for mobile telephony service subscribers and landline telephony service subscribers, a need still exists for improved call screening and call acceptance services. A need to resolve the foregoing problems faced by subscribers of both mobile and landline telephony services also exist. In addition, it would be advantageous to provide additional call screening and call acceptance services to telephony service subscribers.
The present invention provides improved and additional call screen list based services for subscribers of landline and mobile wireless telephone terminals by selectively integrating the various call screen list based services. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method is provided which receives a telephone call intended for a first telephone terminal which may be a mobile or landline telephone terminal, analyzes each call screen list associated with mobile and landline telephone terminals of a subscriber, and provides telephony services to the telephone terminal receiving a telephone call according to the analysis of each call screen list. The method can determine whether the first telephone terminal being called is subscribed to receive call screen list based services. In addition, the method can determine to which call screen list based services the telephone terminal receiving the call is subscribed. The method can either logically associate or logically twin mobile and landline telephone terminals to provide call screen list based services. As such, the method of this embodiment selectively integrates call screen list based services for a subscriber having both mobile and landline telephony services.
The present invention further provides a system for selectively integrating call screen list based telephony services for a subscriber having both mobile and landline telephony services. The system comprises a first telecommunications switch, a memory device, and a telephony service device. The first telecommunications switch receives a telephone call intended for a first telephone terminal of the plurality of mobile and land line telephone terminals of a subscriber. The memory device stores each call screen list associated with the mobile and landline telephone terminals of the subscriber which define the call screen list based telephony services to be provided. Finally, the telephony service device analyzes each call screen list and accordingly provides telephony services to the first telephone terminal of the subscriber based upon the call screen list based services defined for the mobile and landline telephone terminals. Services are provided based upon at least one call screen list defining call screen list based services for at least one telephone terminal of the subscriber. These services are provided irrespective of which type of telephone terminal of the subscriber is the first telephone terminal receiving the incoming telephone call.
In one embodiment, the first telecommunications switch and the telephony service device are disposed within a single integrated telecommunications switch for servicing both mobile and landline telephone terminals. In another embodiment, the telephony service device can be a second telecommunications switch operably connected to the first telecommunications switch. In addition, the system can include a subscriber user interface for managing call screen list based telephony services for mobile and landline telephone terminals.
The present invention further provides an apparatus having a first interface, a memory device, and a computer processor for selectively providing integrated call screen list based telephony services to a subscriber having both mobile and landline telephone terminals. The first interface receives requests to provide call screen list based telephony services to a first telephone terminal of a subscriber receiving an incoming telephone call. The memory device stores each call screen list associated with telephony services to be provided to the mobile and landline telephone terminals of a subscriber. The computer processor executing software accesses and analyzes each call screen list associated with the mobile and landline telephone terminals. Call screen list based services are selectively provided to the first telephone terminal receiving the telephone call according to the analysis of each call screen list.
The present invention further provides an apparatus for selectively requesting integrated call screen list based telephony services for a subscriber having both mobile and landline telephony services. The apparatus comprises a first interface, a second interface, a memory device, and a computer processor. The first interface receives telephone calls intended for a first telephone terminal of the subscriber, while the second interface sends requests for call screen list based telephony services to be provided to the first telephone terminal. The memory device is operably connected to the computer processor and the first and second interfaces. Further, the memory device stores each call screen list associated with call screen list based telephony services provided to the telephone terminals of the subscriber. The computer processor executing software is operably connected to the memory device, and can access and analyze each call screen list. Thus, call screen list based telephony services are provided to the first telephone terminal of the subscriber according to an analysis of each call screen list.
The various embodiments of the present invention provide coordination and selective integration of call screen list based telephony services for the mobile wireless and landline telephone terminals of a subscriber. The inconvenience and unpredictability of managing these services separately for mobile and landline telephone terminals of a subscriber are therefore minimized.